Ireland debuted a new stamp featuring a 224-word short story written by Dublin teenager Eoin Moore.
With Very Small Font, Of Course
The Eternal Mystery
Recommended reading: Jonathan Russell Clark, who's written for us many, many times before, considers "The Eternal Mystery of the Reclusive Writer" for Literary Hub.
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Zadie Smith wins The Moth Award
Last week Zadie Smith, acclaimed novelist and Year in Reading alum, was presented with The Moth Award for storytelling. She gave a charming acceptance speech, video of which can be found here, and we definitely recommend watching!
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“To do so, I felt, would be too dangerous”
Over at Electric Literature, Tara Isabella Burton likens the experience of reading her ex’s favorite book – in this case Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity – to “rifling through someone’s letters after a death.”
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A Bookish Lament
Recommended reading: "A Book Buyer's Lament," from Ken Kalfus for the New Yorker.
Writing-Dude-in-Nature Territory
“In Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett stomps all over writing-dude-in-nature territory with her poetic unraveling of Thoreau’s wilderness jaunt.” A. N. Devers on Bennett’s celebrated new collection.
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The Oddity
You may have heard that the pioneering jazz musician Ornette Coleman died last week at the age of eighty-five. As a composer, he was known for his odd melodies, which reliably tested the boundaries of what jazz could accomplish. At The Paris Review Daily, two musicians and writers look back on his legacy.